Old friends in Athens

It’s 19 degrees and raining here in Athens (hey! when I looked last week it was balmy and sunny – what happened?).  I seem to have had no jetlag, which seems impossible given how long it took to get here and how many time zones I am away from home.  I attribute it to being upgraded to First Class (blisssss) and taking plenty of herbal sleep stuff like melatonin.

Since this is my third visit to Athens, I have made friends here so I am in the process of catching up with them.  It has proved a little more eventful than even I imagined!  First is Anastasia.  Anastasia is about my mum’s age – 70? – and her hobby is languages and travelling the globe.  She is a serious go-getter, and I first met her on the plane on the way to Athens on my first trip.  I looked up from my “flight thoughts” to discover her staring and smiling at me.  We struck up a conversation, and it turns out she was returning home from a South American adventure.  We met a few times for dinner, and she joined my friend and I on the gorgeous island of Hydra, where Anastasia dragged us out of the standard tourist trap half way around the island to have the BEST meal I had in my entire Greek sojourn.   It was one of those classic tales: local taverna, with the fisherman reclining on a seat.  A trip into the kitchen revealed fresh red mullet (the “King of Fish” according to the Greeks).  We had it flash fried with the most amazing taramosalata (caviar dip), fries and salad.  Just magnificent.

Anastasia seems to be slowing down a little, at least in body.  Her spirit is lively, though, and we will have dinner tonight.

Another friend is Laura, who I met in a jewelry store in Athens.  I bought so much stuff there that we became friends, and we have had a meal or 2 each time I have visited.  After arriving yesterday evening, I hot footed it straight to the jewelry store and – lo and behold! – no Laura.  The owner, Costas, who I know from previous visits, just blinked at me when I asked where she was.  “She has left”.

So, I grabbed her number and will get all the goss tomorrow night.

My third friend is a little different.  George.  Giorgos in Greek.  On my first visit we had something of a fling.  On my second, we didn’t see each other (he protests that he rang and came to find me but no luck).  So, we have reconnected on this trip.  We have just met for coffee.  He is as hot and heavy as ever.  Oh dear.  Now I have to work out if, in the cold hard light of the Acropolis, whether I feel the same way.  It’s all good and well to fantasise about him from a distance, but when he’s right there in flesh and blood, one has to make choices…

The last thing I want is to make the wrong choice here and then realise that my life is completely in the toilet.  Dumb Boss, shit time at work PLUS completely wrong choices in men.  Bloody hell, it’s bad enough that world financial markets are going mental…leaving me contemplating the harsh reality that walking out of my job (even with a tidy pay out) may not be an option…

Now, how did having an affair with a Greek dude get back to Dumb Boss?

Anyhow, I’ll try and update you as I go, but I didn’t bring my laptop (travelling light, don’t you know – not enough warm clothes, as it turns out…).  This seems like it will be one interesting trip.

Rainy Saturdays

I used to love a rainy Saturday, but now they just seem to make me feel depressed.

Two weeks ago, one of my management team told me that the team wanted to nominate me for a senior leadership award, but they were worried that I wouldn’t want it in the current political climate.  The team is going well.  There are still a couple of drama queens, but things have improved out of sight.  I am really chuffed that they want to nominate me: Lord knows, though, I won’t win if the Exec Directors that are aligned with DB have anything to do with it.

But how do I deal with this overwhelming feeling that I have no ability to do my job as General Counsel properly?  The feedback from DB has been whirling through my head for 3 weeks now, and I still can’t make head nor tail of most of it.  Much of it contradicts itself.  How do you address issues when you don’t even understand them?

There are two issues here:  one is my ego.  How can I be subservient to Dumb Boss when he is so patently such a fool?  This folly is a well known fact; but my hopes that the new CEO would pick it up quickly have been dashed.  I was approached by the Regional CEO, who is the CEO’s boss, and a supporter of mine.  He told me I would need to fit the regime because, while he could say words of support, the CEO would take time to work Dumb Boss out.  How long will this be?  And would I be one of the sacrifices that would eventually expose him?

Can I live with checking everything with him?  He now wants to see the questions in our customer survey, and the list of people being surveyed.  He always reviews my papers for the Board, often adding himself in as a contact person.  He doesn’t let his direct reports nominate their own staff for leadership opportunities, or even consult with them; instead, he takes these decisions on his own.

So, even if I can live with it: swallow my pride and shut up at the right times, is that what a General Counsel should do?  Will I speak up at the right time, or will he just break my spirit?

My managers are worried that I will leave.  For, if I do, they will follow.  So much is at stake.  But the Company seems so full of backstabbing and blame – do I really want to be here?

I have a holiday to Greece ahead…I will be in Athens in 2 short weeks.  Although I fear a crisis while I am away, I need this break to consider my future.

Greece!

I am writing to you from cold, rainy Athens (where did that sunny weather go?) where I have escaped for 5 glooooorious weeks away.

Well, maybe not glorious.  I had a dumb boss moment before I left, which soured the beginning of the trip.  Now all I can do is worry that he will have his evil way with my team while I am somewhere in the Aegean.  I suppose that’s somewhat better than my being in the same room as him, where I would probably just take a knife to him and be done with.

You may remember that Dumb Boss was threatening to break up the Legal team and put them into the business units?  We agreed that I would put forward various models, and although I tried to get him to agree not to make any decisions while I am away, he agreed only not to make any announcements.  Now, this is a breakthrough given how evil he is, and besides it’s all I could get out of him. 

So, before I left, I told the team I had put various models forward, but that no decisions had been made and there wouldn’t be any news while I was away.

So much for that: at a “Leadership Team” gathering organised by the new CEO, a number of presentations about the new priorities for the business are released, and GUESS WHAT.  One of the organisation charts for a brand new business unit has, under the Product Manager, a box that says “Legal”.  Oh, great.  This means that my team will spot this little surprise next week and, not only do I not know what it means (how many people? direct or dotted reporting line?), but the “Legal” function has to report to the most inappropriate person in the company.  The guy – George – doesn’t understand governance at all and is always coming up with harebrained schemes to make money.  He resents issues being raised and avoids bad news like the plague.  AND NOW IT SEEMS THAT ONE OR MORE OF MY TEAM HAS TO REPORT TO THIS IDIOT!

Lord knows what I will find when I finally turn up to work again at the end October.  Right now, I am trying to get past the mental discipline of not thinking about work constantly.  However, this isn’t easy as I don’t know whether I should just expect to arrive home to find my team decimated and me out of a job, or if it won’t be that bad at all.  At the very least, I know I have to cut around 10% from my budget (since world financial markets have fallen on tough times) and can’t work out how we will actually get the work done…

Anyhow, if I get the chance, I will make this more of a travelogue on Greece, and only occasionally refer to stupid accountants who I may or may not report to…

Last week, before I flew out, I attended an

Confidence

Why is it that confidence and ability seem to so rarely form a perfect match?  What is it about self-delusion that makes so many of us unable to truly understand what we are really capable of?

I, for one, often find myself knocked sideways a little when under subversive attack.  I am terrible, I think, at blowing my own trumpet.  So, when the crunch comes, I find that I get that sick feeling in my stomach that sits there, like a dead weight.  I can often lose confidence in my ability to handle the situation, and withdraw or – sometimes worse, over-talk.  I think it’s like that far more for women, as we so often assume that we cannot do things that we are more than qualified for.  Often, more qualified than the very men who turn up and give it a whirl.  Many men just seem to unfairly and (often destructively) ooze with self-confidence.

Typical of this phenomenon is Dumb Boss, a text book example of someone whose confidence way, way outstrips his ability.  Almost to the point of embarassment.  He is, indeed, the corporate equivalent of one of those tubby contestants on So You Think You Can Dance, or those out of key crooners on Idol.  They turn up to their audition, and inflict their over-rated sense of their own ability on the world, and then are amazed and offended when the judges (and the world) so seemingly miss their talent.  I particularly love it when they mutter to the experts: ”Well, that’s your opinion”.

I wish corporate life were more like that.  I could hit the stage with gusto, and belt out a Karaoke tune better than most.  Bring it on – wheel out the Corporate Lunatics, one by one, and expose them!  Let us stand in front of our judges and get kicked off the stage – or the air ticket to Vegas.

I came across this hugely popular You Tube video of a snaggle-toothed mobile phone salesman who is just the opposite: lacking in confidence, he turned up anyway. 

You can tell by the looks on the judges’ faces that they were convinced that this ordinary dude would be yet another one of THOSE contestants – talentless and self deluded.  “Here we go again”, they thought, but then it got worse: The contestant said he was going to sing opera…

In case you didn’t know, this shy, humble man’s name is Paul Potts.  In 2007, he went on to win Britain’s Got Talent, sing in front of royalty and sell millions of CD’s.

Priceless.

Performance Review: Part 2

You can only imagine how much I was looking forward to this.  I walk in and prepare for another schellacking.  Instead, DB is calm.  He begins: “Well, last time I did a lot of talking.  Why don’t you take it away this time.”

I considered his beady little Dumb Boss eyes.  “How honest can I be?”  He choked for a second, then composed himself.  I continued: “The biggest issue is whether our relationship will ever work.”  There.  I said it.

A fairly civil conversation ensued, at which we agreed I would visit the other Executive DIrectors and get direct feedback, and that he and I would (for the first time ever) actually meet on a regular basis.  That he would give me feedback on issues as they happened.  I foreshadowed that I would respond formally to the issues listed in his extensive email.  All in all, it went OK.

Over the next 2 weeks, I finalised my response: when I delivered it to him, though, he seized up…he felt it was like a declaration of war, whereas I felt I needed to respond to the issues that he had raised.  It was a fair and balanced document: where there were things to learn, I acknowledged it.

But I also noted that he needed to remember that my team was a work in progress: that just over a year ago, I had arrived to turn the team around.  Judging me and the team’s performance was premature and particularly unfair given how overworked we had all been for the entire year. 

We will have to see how it goes.  To be honest, I can’t see how it will work.  I know for a fact that he’s dribbled a biased viewpoint into the CEO, and that with all the problems in the business, my troubles with DB are not a priority.  Especially when all his other direct reports toe the line and hush up at the first sign of trouble.

For the love of Petship

For the love of what?, I hear you ask.

I can thank my wonderful mother for this term.  She is German (hello again, Deutschland!) and, for most of my life, has held a rather sturdy view of the psychological state of people who needed pets in their life.  She felt that there was something wrong with someone who required the love of a cat or a dog.  When we had our first dog, Sonny, she all but tolerated him.  Sometimes you would see her crack and pat him, but that was it on the affection front.  Sonny always regarded her with apprehension; little love sprang forth, but she steadily fed him and made sure he was looked after when we younger less responsible folk occasionally neglected our pet duties.

You can only imagine the horror with which she considered my announcement some years ago that I planned to acquire not 1, but 2, dogs.  What would they do while I was at work!  They would be so much trouble, not worth it at all.  If she suffered horror when they were just a twinkle in my eye, you can then appreciate how her head exploded when I actually picked them up and then – promptly – dumped them on her to poo and wee on her carpet to their hearts’ content as I skipped off interstate for work.

I honestly thought her lips would stay stuck in that pursed pose, particularly when the wing changed direction.

To my absolute amazement, within 2 days she was completely smitten by them.  Within weeks of their arrival, she actually turned up to my house when I was at work and dog-napped them, returning them only days later when I stomped my foot and demanded them back. 

She is now really their primary carer – she sees them most days and, when they are not at her place as part of our shared custody arrangements, she comes to my house and sits with them.  She pours over their skin to identify any sign of a rash and, when they have colds, she actually wipes their noses.  She even got a rash once for kissing them on the nose (so much for the German indifference to pets).

There is one downside with her spending so much time with them: separation anxiety.  They can’t be left to themselves for great lengths of time without ripping up toilet paper or sitting on the couch in protest.  However, she refuses to leave them, exacerbating the separation anxiety problem.

Why?

Because dogs don’t last long enough.

10-12 years of life is nowhere near enough when you fall so deeply in love that they feel like her grandchildren.  I know what you’re thinking; but they do feel like my kids.  And since they don’t last long enough, it’s the right – the only – thing to spend as much time as possible with them.  This, my friend, is petship.  Her cross between friendship, companionship, and straight love for our pets.

To not spend that time with them would be to commit the most heinous of pet crimes: it would be a waste of petship.

Another chat with HR

During chat number 1, my HR rep suggests and she and I should get together with the Acting ED of HR to talk about the Dumb Boss situation.  So, we catch up for an hour the day before Performance Review Part 2.

They are their usual cagey selves, but announce that no-one wants me to leave.  Not even Dumb Boss, and he has confirmed this personally (that asshole; I had already started making plans to spend my massive pay-out on a 12 month break, some of which would be spent studying Italian in Florence, probably at a school going by the name of a famous Renaissance artist).  They give me some meaningless advice, and then give me a couple of pretty nifty pieces of information:

1. The CEO has no plans to break up Legal.  While he might change his mind, and Dumb Boss might force the issue anyhow, all the new CEO wants is for service areas to have more accountability to the business.  This is completely cool with me; in fact, that was the next phase of our plan.

2. The CEO asked that they tell me he really values me.  I cried at that bit.  Only a little bit, though.  It certainly made me feel better.

The other thing that made me feel better that week was my lawyer, who reckons DB could seriously screw himself over if he makes the wrong move.   Only 1 day to go until Performance Review Part 2…

Fireside chats with HR

I don’t know about you, but I am never sure if I can completely trust HR.  I always feel like they sit on the fence and do the bidding of their corporate masters.  Sometimes they lack actual human traits.

Our HR business partner is an extremely intelligent person.  She has followed the trajectory of the legal team for many years now, and acknowledges (with enormous relief) that it is now a happy, well functioning team and that’s because of what I have done.  She is also very aware that my team is very loyal to me, and that it’s likely to implode if I leave.

However, I always get the sense that she is assessing me (and everyone else she comes across).  So I am wary.

Her old boss is the dude I have been getting advice from about the DB situation, and as far as she is able, she has agreed that DB is a pain in the ass and has serious leadership issues.  She has been very supportive of me.  She also knows I have a good dialogue with her old boss.  So, I called her.  First, I told her that I think DB is trying to get rid of me.  Second, that I am getting legal advice.  Third, that for an appropriately large sum of money I will leave quietly.

And I wait.  As word slowly filters back to Dumb Boss…

Performance Review Part 1

Don’t panic, I thought.  DON’T PAAAAANIIIIICCCC!  CEO is smarter than to be taken in.

I called our ex-HR dude in Europe: What should I do next?

His words were calming: don’t put it past the new CEO to know exactly what DB is like.  He is a smart guy, and has already commented that DB “Has his phaser turned to kill instead of stun.”  Hmmm.  OK.  I’ll trust that and prepare for my performance review with DB.

So, I wander into DB’s cage at the appointed time, and take my seat across the desk from him.  He then pulls out a file with my name on it and yanks out a pile of paper.  He vaguely refers to a couple of positive things I have done this year…and then promptly announces that, for all of his team who are “service providers to the business” he has sought anonymous feedback from 15 people on our performance.  15 people???  He has asked Exec Directors (ie his peers), but there aren’t 15 of them…it appears that he has also been busy asking MY PEERS for feedback.  All without my knowledge.

He then reads out a list of supposed sins, from “The Legal team only provide basic service”  (uh, yeah, because we have been swamped and because DB randomly cut our budget last year), to “they sometimes get advice wrong (um…every lawyer does), to “they outsource too much”  (again, that’s what happens when you’re under-resourced). 

Naturally, all feedback is anonymous, rendering me unable to know what to properly respond to.

As you can imagine, it hit me like a tidal wave and I didn’t know what to respond to first.  I did, however, remain calm and cool about the whole sorry tale.  I responded to what I could and then suggested that he needed to work on his own communication style.  That I felt it was both unfair and inappropriate that he had bombarded me with this without warning, and that I would respond formally in due course.  Needless to say, it was an hour and 20 minutes before we parted…and he announced that there was to be a follow-up session in which he would cover the “positive” feedback.   It was scheduled for 8 days later…leaving me to sweat and continue to hatch my response plan.

I knew I couldn’t panic.  I had to remain level-headed and take each day as it came.  The worst thing I could do is to over-react and ruin any chance of credibility he had.  I needed to be cold and calculating.  It was the only way to respond.  It seemed to me like it was time to plant some helpful information with our HR area…

Chilling at the spa

OK.  Continuing my Battle with Dumb Boss. 

I went to a spa for the weekend and spent $3,000 on clean food, sensual massages and thinking about DB and what appeared to be his evil plan to oust me.  First of all, I decided, I needed to NOT CARE what he did with my team (yes, even with all I’ve put into rebuilding the team).  Why?  Because if I took it personally he would attack me for not supporting a fact of corporate life, and I would end up being too emotional to make the cold, calculating decisions that were necessary to take it to him.

So, with that decision made, I also emailed our regional general counsel (my functional boss) about what had been going on.  He was very concerned to hear that there were considerations about legal’s reporting lines being changed, and my governance role being threatened.  He is a wise old bird, and I figured that he could help me build a strategy to defeat DB’s evil plan.  A very cool dude indeed.

I also downed lots of lentils, bought much Babor facial products (very nice German stuff – hello again, Deutschland) and did tai chi each morning.  This is apart from finding out that I am a somewhat talented salsa dancer, and blew the other less rythmic chicks out of their socks.  But that is beside the point. 

I arrived back at work on the Wednesday and had cooled to the idea of seeing the CEO first – I needed to duke it out with DB before unveiling all his evil ways to the CEO.  However, when I rang to cancel the appointment, his PA told me that the CEO had asked her to postpone it until after my appointment with the CFO.  Not surprisingly, it appears that DB had been doing his own lobbying.